A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees (25 page)

Yeluc

Many times the gods have summoned me to their place in the firmament so that I can see their power. The first time I journeyed there I burnt with a light as intense as theirs and everything I touched was seared: my outline on the shell of my faithful Tortuga, my footsteps like blackened holes on the membrane of their kingdom, and my breath burning the air in front of me so it smelt of soot. Other times they have permitted me to enter their lower world and in there is a black sea with a grey beach of cinder skirting its edge. It is a place of small fires: points of lights rising in the distance, each one an island, sometimes spurting out columns of red liquid rock. In both these places is Tortuga, and sometimes his friend Piche, both of them armoured animals: one with the shell of a turtle, the other the mantle of the armadillo. Tortuga is silent, but Piche talks like a mountain-brook. Sometimes I can choose where I wish to go, but most often it is decided for me. I shut my eyes and enter with the beat of a drum, or the taste of the black herb, or sometimes I need nothing at all, just my body becoming so numb with hunger and fatigue that my soul escapes.

It is all this that makes me a shaman, chosen by Elal to see his world. I can bring good spirits and bad, and because of this I am to be feared and left alone with Seannu and her sisters. Yet sometimes they come to me: the Gallatts and the Chiquichan. There are some things only a shaman can know and do. There are some things only I can do. I know the ways of both Cristianos and Galenses, and sometimes they need me to help them.

This time Chiquichan comes with a message for the government. He wants payment for the land he thinks is his, and he trusts me to get it. No one can own the land, Chiquichan, I tell him, but he shakes his head. You live too much in the old times, Yeluc, he says. The old spirits are getting weaker, and the
Cristianos
have different rules. And he tells me to go to Buenos Aires with one of the Galenses called Ed-wyn. He is their chief and a good man, he says. And when I am there he knows I will make sure that Chiquichan has a voice.

So I leave on one of their swans. Not one with white mantles, but one which breathes hotly and noisily in its sleep. It rocks me so hard that it wakens strange dreams and demons. My body burns. My breath comes bursting from me. Oh, such sickness in the stomach. I cannot heal it. I shut my eyes and ask Elal to help me make a journey but I go nowhere. I call out for Tortuga, but he doesn't come. The white men shift before my eyes like ghosts. The one called Ed-wyn smiles and says he is my friend, but I don't know him. I call out for Elal but he covers his ears and I don't know why.

There is no talk of leaving now. Nine months have gone past but Santa Fe is just a vague memory. It is autumn and although all the colonists now have fields of wheat only Silas' field is ripe. It is the colour of ochre, as lush and as perfect as any you would find in any of the provinces to the north. Silas fingers the ears; each one is full, firm, close to perfection. They rattle and whistle slightly in the wind, crack and snap when he comes too close. His sickle is ready. A few people from the village have come to see – Edwyn, Selwyn and Annie and the Jones family with Myfanwy. It is the colony's first crop. He looks towards his cottage but of course no one appears. It is then that he notices the light: in front of him, to the south, the sky is black-blue, darkening like a bruise, but from behind him the sun shines. It lights the field with a surreal brilliance. For a few seconds he enjoys the colours. But the sky means that rain is approaching – perhaps a storm that will flatten all this and make it worthless. They need to work hard to bring it all in and under cover before it comes.

‘Now?' asks Silas.

‘Now,' nods Selwyn.

Silas grips his sickle and makes the first cut. The people beside him cheer and a few rush in to help.

That night he creeps in to Megan. He is exhausted but satisfied, every muscle in his back aching – a sweet sharp reminder of his success. It is done. Myfanwy is asleep in her bed clutching onto the doll Miriam has made her. Megan sleeps with the baby. The infant grizzles in her sleep every night as if she is unhappy to be alive. Silas has tried not to get too fond of her but the child has such an endearing face – rather long for a baby, with a largish nose. Megan keeps the baby constantly with her during the day, fastened to her breast in a shawl. She is anxious, constantly checking the child's breath as she sleeps, waking her if she sleeps too long. Only once has she relented her grip on the child, for Caradoc to bless her and name her: Arianwen.

Silas is wary of touching the child and strokes her long fine hair with trepidation. It is dark brown and thick. Every night he kisses her small, sleeping face.

Live, he thinks, and something warm catches light within him. Live, and I shall take care of you. Fight, my little one, fight for yourself – and your brother and sister.

Edwyn has called a special meeting of the council to discuss the crop. Everyone is smiling.

  ‘It's a model for the entire valley,' Edwyn says. ‘So far all of the farms that have irrigated have seen a similar miracle.'

They are all clapping him on the back now. When Edwyn proposes a cheer, a child starts to cry at the noise.

‘I am keeping a note of yield, size of the field, the frequency of irrigation and the type of soil.' Edwyn grins at Silas, as if they are allies, but fails to catch his eye, then says, ‘I shall tell Dr Rawson we have struck gold – a special sort of gold.'

Trickery, Silas thinks, that's all it is. The man has a slippery tongue and he will take no notice.

‘Silas? What do you think?'

He looks up. They are all waiting for him to speak. ‘I think we should look into blocking the river upstream,' Silas says, and a couple of people around him nod their heads, ‘and investigate the building of canals.'

There is a general murmur of agreement. Silas bows his head again, but this time he allows himself to grin.

‘We should make sure that everyone has access to a water supply,' one of the Americans says. ‘We could set up co-operatives and work together.'

‘Amen to that!'

‘And we should survey the land properly...'

‘Agreed.'

‘If we used that old river bed we would save ourselves some work.'

Their voices become loud and enthusiastic. One of the new American families, the Parrys, have shown Silas how to thresh his wheat using a horse tethered to a point on the ground and a plate dragged behind the horse near to the surface.

‘But first we need more supplies, more equipment, more money from the government. If I can take all this...' Edwyn waves his notes at everyone, ‘...then I'm sure we will have a strong case.'

‘Are you going on board the
Denby
?' someone asks.

What else is there? Edwyn nods. ‘I'm sorry, yes, I'm afraid I shall have to.'

The
Denby
is anchored in the river. Her last journey south from Buenos Aires has left her even more dilapidated, and every day someone is there, hammering or mending. It is the colonists' intention to make her seaworthy again using the old wreck that lies just down-river, because without her they feel isolated.

‘I'll take her just as far as Patagones,' he reassures them. ‘I can take the steamer from there. Then Ivor can bring her straight back to you.'

‘But is she safe?' Mary says.

‘The captain assures me that she is – but that is another reason not to take her back to Buenos Aires. The port authorities might declare her not seaworthy and I don't want them to commandeer her again. Much better if she comes back and I go on by steamer. Now who will come with me?'

There is a chorus of volunteers.

Megan is listening. He knows she is listening even though she makes no sign that she's heard. She is concentrating on Arianwen. She fusses over the small rash on her chest, and then inspects her anxiously while she feeds. Every other chore has been left. Her knitting remains half finished by the stove, and her sewing is gathering dust by her bed.

‘Edwyn is going to Buenos Aires tomorrow,' he tells her, ‘with samples of my wheat.'

But she says nothing, merely divides Arianwen's hair and peers at her scalp. Miriam, however, is listening with interest. He likes the way she gives him her full attention, apparently absorbed in what he is saying or wanting to finish tales of her own.

‘He's going to tell them about the irrigation,' Silas continues, mainly for Miriam now, ‘the way it has changed everything. He wanted me to come too, he said I could be expert witness since it was my idea...' he glances at Megan, ‘well, since I was the one that made it work... but I told him that it was more important for me to stay here so I would be on hand to help everyone else.'

He is enjoying his new status as teacher. The threshing has worked well and now there are sacks of Silas' grain in the warehouse that he is swapping with the rest of the colonists for favours and labour. The bread that is made from this grain is particularly fine, he is told, though whether this is just sycophantic comment or truth he has yet to discover. Yesterday he gave Miriam two bags of flour, freshly milled by one of the women in the village – one as a present to her family and one for her to convert into bread for himself – and he is looking forward to finding out how it tastes.

He glances at Megan again. The baby has obviously finished feeding because it is motionless in her arms. He walks over to her and then reels back.

‘Let me have her, Megan. She's stinking of pee.'

Megan shakes her head, holds the baby close and starts to sing softly into her arms. The smell is so strong that it is making his eyes water.

‘Megan, either you have to change her or I shall.' He reaches down but Megan rocks back and forth singing more loudly.

‘Megan!'

He prises her arms away and uncovers the baby from the shawl like a bud from its leaves. Then he plunges in his hands and stops. Cold. Too cold. Megan's eyes are fixed on his own. Her head shakes slowly. ‘No. No. No.'

‘Miriam,' he says, trying to keep his voice from breaking, ‘would you please take Myfanwy home and ask your mother to come and help me?'

Megan has propped herself up on her elbow and is watching him. Strange how he knows that her eyes are open and staring at him – even before he looks up. She looks at him in silence for a few minutes and then lies down again. The faint shininess, where her eyes were in the darkness, disappears. Soon she will speak again, he knows that. He just has to be patient. Grief has made her mute before, but she has always eventually found her tongue. It takes time, but soon she will come round and talk to him again. He squats in front of her and takes her hands. ‘Please, Megan, you have to try. Smile, talk, say something, do something. We all need you. We can't go on without you.'

But she says nothing.

‘Just squeeze my hands if you can hear me.'

He waits. Her left hand twitches and closes slightly around his. Its coldness raises the hairs on the back of his shoulders.

He leans forward and kisses her gently on the lips and tastes the salt of tears. ‘What is it?'

She gives a sudden sob and lurches forward into his arms. ‘I'm frightened to love anything – if I do God will take it away from me.'

He hugs her to him, grateful for her warmth and her voice.

‘But we have to love,
cariad
. Without love, we are nothing.'

‘I miss them so much. Every minute. The pain doesn't stop. As if someone has caught hold of something inside me and is wringing me out.'

She sobs again and then takes a breath. ‘It is better not to feel anything, better not to love at all.'

He holds her from him: ‘No, Megan, you're wrong.'

She shakes her head. ‘It's too late.'

‘Won't you try?'

He thinks she nods her head.

A new ship arrives in the river. She has jaunty sails, a naked mermaid as a figurehead, and negotiates the sand bar nimbly. The colonists crowd onto the shore to greet her, stamping their feet to banish the cold, the children laughing and pointing delightedly at the nudity.

Edwyn comes ashore with a large white-bearded captain who speaks no Welsh or English but sniggers at anything anyone says.

‘Where's the
Denby
?' Edwyn asks, ‘she left Patagones before we did.'

‘Held up somewhere, I expect,' someone replies. ‘You know what Ivor's like.'

The ship is loaded with cattle, seeds and agricultural equipment – with the compliments of the Argentine government. A present from minister Rawson to celebrate the promise of harvest. The colonists forget the
Denby
as they gleefully unload ploughs, rakes, sowing and tamping machines – the best, most up-to-date equipment anyone can buy. The men are delighted, their voices high and excited as children's at Christmas. Most of the machines will be communal. Some of them are even new to the Americans and they take it in turns to experiment with them, laughing as the ploughs go askew, and the harvester leaves the wheat intact.

‘We can't fail now,' says one, and a row of heads around him nods. ‘With all that we've learnt, and this. We could be rich, gentlemen.'

‘With the Lord's blessing,' says Caradoc.

‘Amen.'

Miriam runs out to meet him.

‘She's not back,' she says. ‘I don't know where she's gone.'

‘Who's with her?'

‘She's on her own. The children are in bed asleep.'

Last night he'd caught Megan weeping over milk that had turned sour.

‘The
Tylwyth Teg
,' she'd said, ‘they're playing tricks. I have to find out where they're coming from.' He'd had to stop her going out there and then, eventually persuading her to mutter a prayer instead – one that had sounded more like a spell than a message to God.

He walks to the Jones' house and looks around him. The land is slightly higher there and he can see for a long way in each direction. The landscape is as empty as it usually is – almost flat without interruption to the hills and to the river. It is not quite night and everything is a shade of grey, blue or black. When he thinks he can see a slight movement in the vegetation towards the river he walks towards it.

She won't have gone far. She has no shoes, just some slippers Silas has sewn together for her from hide. Closer to the river he spots her footsteps, almost circular like the Tehuelches'. They lead along the bank, keeping close to the water's edge.

He comes upon her suddenly, sitting on a rock, looking out over the river.

She is staring at something ahead of her that seems to be absorbing her completely. Even when he climbs up beside her and touches her arm she doesn't turn.

‘St David's lights,' she murmurs, but when he peers into the darkness he can see nothing.

‘Megan?' he says gently, but she doesn't turn.

‘Candles, burning on the water, leading the way.'

There are tears in her eyes. She blinks and they begin a slow track down her face.

‘Arianwen, Gwyneth, Richard, Mam…'

‘Come,
cariad
fach
, St David's lights are for warning of what lies ahead – not for what has already passed.'

‘I saw a bird, I should have told you. Outside the house. Sitting there. On its own.'

Silas sighs. Everything is a warning. Every sign presages death. When did this start? He can't remember. When did the girl that laughed all the time change into this superstitious woman?

‘Come, Megan, time to go home. You need to rest. You're tired.'